Author: drmarchudson

Categories
Australia

 March 29, 1995 –  “a transparent attempt to promote the Australian coal industry”

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 29th, 1995, Federal Environment Minister John Faulkner, fresh from losing the carbon tax battle) gave a press conference 

J Faulkner (Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories),Press conference for the release of Greenhouse 21C, speech, 29 March 1995 

Greenpeace’s climate campaigner, Mr Keith Tarlo, said the biggest single item was the $25 million program to promote clean coal technology in India.

“This is a scandal. (It) is a transparent attempt to promote the Australian coal industry and can only lock India into escalating greenhouse emissions,” he said.

Boreham, G. 1995. Industry Says Yes, Greens Say No To Emissions Policy. The Age, 30 March, p.3. 

AND

Greenpeace said the biggest item in the package was $25 million to promote “clean coal” technology overseas. This was really meant to boost Australian coal exports and the “clean” meant only low sulphur content, it said.

Shehan, C. and McCathie, A. 1995. Bid To Cut Gas Levels – But It’s Voluntary. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March, p.3.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had been a bloody and ultimately successful campaign against a mild, minor carbon tax. And here John Faulkner, who had proposed that tax had to pretend the booby prize, which was the Greenhouse 21 challenge (presumably had been written by civil servants or given to them by business as the lowest common denominator) would make a blind bit of difference.

What I think we can learn from this is that if you’re not going to have anything serious, but you still have “presentational problems” on an issue that voters might care about, then you come up with these bullshit voluntary schemes. 

What happened next

Greenhouse 21 was a joke, as was the Australian Greenhouse office, as was Greenhouse Challenge Plus. And everybody stopped pretending that it was worth continuing to pretend by about 2005. But the pretence continues – it has to…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 29, 1979 – Health impacts of carbon dioxide discussed…

March 29, 1993 – C02 Disposal symposium takes place in Oxford

March 29, 1995- Kuwaiti scientist says if global warming happening, it’s not fossil fuels. #MRDA

Categories
International processes United States of America

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

Twenty four years ago, on this day, March 28th, 2001,

2001 Bush kills US ratification of Kyoto

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2001/mar/29/globalwarming.usnews

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that on the campaign trail, George W Bush had promised to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. People who wanted to believe that chose to believe that this was a Kyoto ratification promise. It was not. President Cheney told his underling what to say, and the underling said it. For the benefit of short term benefit of oil and gas companies, but also by now, it was entrenched as part of the bigger “culture war.”

What I think we can learn from this

that you can trust people to pursue their material and ideological interests as they understand them in the short term and to hell with the consequences. And if someone gets cold feet, they are replaceable. They’re always replaceable.

See Julian Rathbone’s superior eco thriller The Eurokillers for a fictional representation of this. 

What happened next

To absolutely no one surprised that Prime Minister John Howard pulled Australia out of Kyoto negotiations on World Environment Day the following year, 2002. But nonetheless, Kyoto was finally ratified in 2005 because the Russians wanted membership in the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, the emissions kept climbing. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Australia Uncategorized

March 27, 1995 – former Nature editor John Maddox admits was wrong on Greenhouse, without, er, admitting it.

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 28th, 1995,

27 March 1995, to another Australian audience – “On the greenhouse effect, Sir John suggested that the onus of proof had shifted towards those who denied it”. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-253921166/view?sectionId=nla.obj-259513073&partId=nla.obj-253927437#

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first IPCC report had come out, and the second was near completion. John Maddox, finally, 25 years after his first attacks on carbon dioxide concerns, was conceding that those worried had been right and he’d been wrong. Not that he put it in those words of course.

The older context was that in 1971 Maddox on a visit to Australia had rubbished worries about carbon dioxide….

What I think we can learn from this is it takes old white men a very long time to change their tune. It’s not clear to me that the former Met Office supremo, John Mason, for example, ever did. 

What happened next

The second IPCC report came out saying that there was a discernible influence of human activity. And this word got monstered. The denialists knew enough not to go for Bert Bolin, so they went for Ben Santer instead.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

March 27, 2008 – James Hansen writes a letter to Kevin Rudd

Categories
Norway

March 27, 1971 – Norwegian Tabloid talks about the climate threat

Fifty four years ago, on this day, March 27th, 1971,

In 1971, in Norway’s largest tabloid newspaper, a journalist reported [on March 27] that global warming “may cause the polar ice to melt, that the ocean will rise above its shores, that cities and large territories of land will be under water, [and] that humans will be displaced to mountain regions” (Anonymous 1971). This alarming news story, possibly the first reference to the issue of global warming in Norwegian press, was buried in a host of similar stories of doom and gloom. Since Earth Day a year before, readers had become used to hearing about a fast approaching environmental Ragnarök. This was alarming news to Norwegians who would typically spend their vacations enjoying the country’s beautiful fjords and mountains. 

Anonymous (1971) Og havet vil stige, VG March 27 

Source: Anker, 2018

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the previous year, in February, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands had mentioned CO2 build up. There were probably other mentions in the press, but crucially, this is apparently the first one in the Norwegian press, alongside a general sense of ecological problems, there was also a very specific climatological issue. 

What I think we can learn from this

Climate change was among the other late 1960s-early 197s eco-concerns…

What happened next

Well, nine years later, the Minister for Statoil said it was a long way off.  [see March 21, 1980]

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

Categories
Australia Denmark UNFCCC United Nations

March 26, 2010 – How many Aussie Government types were at Nopenhagen? Lots!

Fifteen years ago, on this day, March 26th, 2010, the Labor government was forced to give details of the size of the (large) Australian delegation to COP-15 in Copenhagen. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that  Copenhagen hadn’t just been Kevin Rudd tearing up  the speech that had been written for him, rewriting it and delivering it to a total lack of applause. No, Copenhagen had been 70 or 75 officials and experts and so forth, all flying halfway around the world to save the world. And the Liberals were wanting to punch the bruise, and so requested the information in order to have the ammo that to run a one day wonder, “waste of money, pointy headed bureaucrats with their snouts in the trough style” article. And so it came to pass.

What I think we can learn from this

that any international negotiation is going to involve sherpas at the summit and all sorts of other malarkey. And for those who are opposed to the agenda of whatever the summit is, it’s a very easy writes-itself kind of critique. And that’s what happened. 

What happened next

A couple months after this Rudd was gone. The climate issue, however, was not…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

March 26, 1993 – UK government to ratify climate treaty

March 26, 2007 – Lavoisier Group lay into CCS

Categories
Interviews

Interview with Dave Vetter – “politics is downstream of culture”

Dave Vetter writes extremely well about climate change and the messiness of it all. He has a very much worth-your-time set of essays about climate disinformation, a judiciously active social media presence (first on the site that Shall Not Be Named) and latterly on Bluesky. He kindly agreed to an interview…

Who are you – i.e. roughly when were you born, where did you grow up, what did you do after leaving school?

I was born in Edinburgh at some point in the (cough) 1970s, but grew up in Cardiff, where it rained so hard for so long that I ran away to East Asia. I spent a few years as a teacher in Hong Kong, until I realised I couldn’t have a job that didn’t revolve around writing. At that point I returned to the UK and took up an MA in international journalism. Since then I’ve had just about every print media role you can think of, and the entire time print media has been in its death throes. That’s quite a concerning correlation, when I think about it.

When and how did you first hear about climate change – do you remember what you thought?

I first heard about climate change in the 1980s, when I was in primary school. Our teachers did a good job of scaring us into being little activists. That’s never really gone away. I also understood from a young age that climate change is indivisible from human injustice, probably thanks to my dad [the epidemiologist Norman J. Vetter]. I get annoyed when people talk about “saving the planet”. We’re saving ourselves! Shoutout to Dana Fisher, there.

You write for Forbes – how did that gig come about?

I began writing for Forbes when I returned to the UK in 2019. I’d been in media and publishing for about 12 years by that point, but wanted to focus solely on climate. At that point I had the means, motive and opportunity to completely reconfigure my career in a media industry that I felt was becoming increasingly frivolous – so I went for it.

You’re pretty prolific on social media – what do you get out of it (positive and negative) and what would you like to see “climate people” doing more of – or less of – on Bluesky etc?

Yes, I post too much. It’s probably a net harm to me in all sorts of ways, but I generally try to highlight issues that I feel need attention, and I try to do so in a responsible way without being boring about it. I’m perpetually conflicted about how useful any of this is; I, like many of us, am just figuring it out as we go along.

What other projects are you involved in?

I’m trying to juggle a dozen projects while treading water. My approach is far too headless chicken. And to pay the bills I ghostwrite and do copyediting. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is everything is gonna be peachy keen through to 10 is “Mad Max scenarios look like The Sound of Music before the Nazis turn up”, where do you think we will be in 2050?
From a self-centred, short-termist, northern European perspective, I’m hopeful that European agriculture doesn’t collapse. There are indications that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation might be more robust than we thought, which might be a reprieve, though we absolutely shouldn’t be banking on this.

The one thing we can be sure of is we’re heading into a less safe, less stable future. I’m sorry to say that that means most of us are going to be struggling a lot more, while a few very wealthy fraudsters will continue to grab what they can. To sustain ourselves I think we’re going to need to rediscover the meaning of community, and what’s actually important, rather than what we’ve been inculcated to believe is important.

Bonus – anything else you’d like to say.

Something I really appreciate about All Our Yesterdays is that, via history, it emphasises aspects of the climate crisis that are overlooked – namely the cultural and the social aspects, which is where I believe all the most important fights are being fought. People always claim the biggest hurdle to climate action is politics, but they’re wrong: it’s culture. Andrew Breitbart, the most appalling figure, was right when he said politics is downstream from culture. Liberal politicians almost universally do not understand this, which is a big reason why we’re facing the crises we’re facing.

Categories
Uncategorized

March 25, 1995 – “Women and the Environment” conference in Melbourne

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 26th, 1995, red and green try to mix, with limited success.

Bad blood flows between the green movement and the union movement. The controversy over logging recently has led to ugly incidents between timber workers and conservationists. Ms George said she had agreed to speak at a conference on women and the environment this weekend to try to ease some of the hostility between the two groups…. The Australian Conservation Foundation’s executive director, Ms Tricia Caswell, said the ACF, Greenpeace and women’s groups had decided to host the conference at the World Congress Centre because women were often the backbone of community environment groups and were the main environmental educators to children but received little recognition.

Milburn, C. 1995. ACTU’s George Plays Peacemaker To Greens, Unions. The Age, March 24

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia is a patriarchal settler colony with horrendous attitudes on sex, race, nature, and there are ongoing cultural, ideological, political, physical battles around this. When ACF set this conference up, they were probably hoping that they could bask in the glory of a carbon tax, but it was not to be. 

crucially,Can we find someone who was there that would be interesting, a woman who was there in Melbourne, 30 years ago. So for an interview, Article doesn’t have to be specifically about that conference and whether it meant anything, because, frankly, maybe it didn’t. It can be more broad than that. Okay, send out the request. 

What I think we can learn from this

We fail.  And we keep failing.

What happened next

We failed some more.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 25, 1982 – congressional hearings and CBS Evening News repor

March 25, 1988- World Meteorological Organisation sends IPCC invites.

March 25, 2013 – Australian Department of Climate Change axed

Categories
United States of America

March 25, 1982 – CBS Evening News runs 3 minute story on the greenhouse effect. Can’t say we weren’t warned…

Forty three years ago, on this day, March 25th, 1982,

The CBS Evening News for March 25, 1982 included a two minute and 50 second story by David Culhane on the greenhouse effect. Chemist Melvin Calvin raised the threat of global warming, Representative Al Gore called for further research, and James Kane of the Energy Department said there was no need for haste. (Sachsman, 2000)

Carbon Dioxide and Climate : The Greenhouse Effect hearings of the House Committee on Science and Technology, 97th Congress, March 25 1982 https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002758682

See the detailed account in Nathaniel Rich’s Losing Earth

(also in C02 Newsletter Vol 3 No 3, March-April 1982)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

that the CO2 issue was something journalists had been particularly interested in since maybe the late 1970s and although Reagan and Republicans were in the ascendant, that didn’t mean that Congress had stopped chipping away. And I think in ‘82 was the first time Al Gore had held hearings

Congressional hearings are a nice hook – the experts are in town, so you can grab them for an interview. And you can get two or three minutes of quality journalism relatively cheaply and predictably. 

What I think we can learn from this that Americans were being tolerably well-informed about future threats. 43 years ago. It was on the television for Christ’s sake – national news. 

What happened next

CO2 kept bubbling away in the American news, famously in ‘83 with the EPA report “can we delay a greenhouse warming?” (no),  and on and on at a relatively low level until it properly exploded in the summer of 1988.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 25, 1982 – congressional hearings and CBS Evening News repor

March 25, 1988- World Meteorological Organisation sends IPCC invites.

March 25, 2013 – Australian Department of Climate Change axed

Categories
Uncategorized

March 24, 1990 – Labor politician has dummy spit on election night about needing small g-green votes

Thirty five years ago, on this day, March 24th, 1990, on the night of the Federal election, a retiring Labor Minister got stuck in to environmentalists.

“The backlash against environmentalists began very publicly on election night. Peter Walsh launched a bitter attack on them from the tally room, attempting to deny any influence they might have had on the outcome. He was joined in later weeks and months by a number of Cabinet ministers, largely but not exclusively from the economic portfolios, but careful evaluation of that election result makes Walsh’s assertion untenable.

Malcolm Mackerras (The Australian, March 1, 1993) summarises the result well: on the primaries, the Coalition had 43.5 per cent to Labor’s 39.4 per cent, the Democrats 11.3 and others 5.8 per cent.

However, Labor’s environment second-preference strategy was so successful that the two-way party preferred vote became 50.1 per cent for the Coalition and 49.9 per cent for Labor (which just fell over the line to win in seats).”

Toyne, P. 1993. Environment forgotten in the race to the Lodge. Canberra Times, March 8 p. 11.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was the Australian Federal election, where the ALP gets a fourth term very narrowly, and crucially, thanks to small g green voters, though Peter Walsh, who was stepping down, didn’t like to be beholden to people he despised (people who believed in, you know, beauty and post-material values and all the rest of it.) Walsh was an old-fashioned Labor right, disdained these people, and must have hated that his party could only get back into power with their help. Thus, of course, vociferous denial and denunciation. 

What I think we can learn from this is that people like Walsh, and there are lots of them around, cannot abide fragility, especially their own. 

What happened next

Walsh acted out his fury and hate and presumably self-loathing in both his newspaper columns. See here LINK and here, LINK for example, and also as part of the Lavoisier Group. If ever you needed an Australian poster poster boy for anti-reflexivity, (link to video about this here) it’s Peter Walsh 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 24, 1989 – Exxon Valdez vs Alaska. (EV wins)

March 24, 2010 – Scientists explain another bad thing on the horizon, this time on soil

March 24, 2004 – Launch of Coal21 National Plan

Categories
United States of America

March 23, 1969 – US TV network CBS asks “What are we doing to our World?” 

Fifty six years ago, on this day, March 23rd, 1969,

15 March 1969 CBS documentary Edmond Levy – What are we doing to our world? pt. 1. Telecast: Mar. 16, 1969. © 15Mar69; 

MP20651. What are we doing to our world? pt. 2. Telecast: Mar. 23, 1969. © 22Mar69; MP20652.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

the second part of a “what are we doing to the earth?” CBS show. The context was that throughout the 1960s concern about growing air pollution, water pollution, litter, ugliness, deforestation,  and general angst about the consequences of modernity had been building. One obvious marker of this was Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring. 

Anyway, things really kicked off in ‘69 because of the Santa Barbara oil spill and Nixon wanting to get ahead of the environment issue. But of course, the documentary was two part 

Oh, sidebar, that 15th of July report, that’s probably the memo from Kennet, explicitly mentions Barry Commoner. 

What I think we can learn from this is that there has been hand wringing and pearl-clutching and worry about environmental issues long before Earth Day in April 1970. 

What happened next

Six months later, Senator Gaylor Nelson decided that there should be an Earth Day, and he deliberately chose Vladimir Lenin’s birthday as a secret signal to his fellow crypto-Marxists… I’m just kidding. And his intern, Dennis Hayes, did a good job of coordinating. And then on April 22 1970 everyone was out proclaiming their Love of Mother Nature. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 23, 1989 – cold fusion!!

March 23, 1993 – UK “The Prospects for Coal” White Paper published.

 March 23, 2011 – Ditch the Witch rally in Canberra